ZOA Thanks Biden for Positive Statements and Promised Assistance to Israel; and Urges Biden to Take Specific Actions to Undo Harmful-to-Israel Policies
advocacy News Press Release
October 10, 2023

ZOA: Biden Should Have Mentioned Iran’s Role In Funding And Arming Hamas And Hezbollah 

Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) National President Morton A. Klein released the following statement:

The ZOA thanks President Biden for his speech yesterday explaining that Hamas is “unadulterated evil . . . a group whose stated purpose for being is to kill Jews,” which slaughtered over one thousand Jews this weekend, butchering parents and babies, and assaulting, raping and parading women as trophies. We very much appreciate that in his speech, the president reiterated U.S. support for Israel, and promised ammunition and other assistance to ensure “Israel does not run out of these critical assets to defend its cities and its citizens.” We likewise appreciate Biden’s statement and tweets over the weekend condemning Hamas terrorists’ appalling, unconscionable killings of civilians in their homes and taking entire families hostage; affirming unwavering U.S. support for Israel; affirming that “Israel has a right to defend itself – full stop”; and pledging “to make sure that Israel has what it needs.” (See “ZOA: Call Congress & Other Important Actions Against Hamas Arabs’ Nazi-Like Murders of Innocent Jewsfor Biden’s statements this past weekend. An additional tweet today is here.) We also thank Pres. Biden for a recent report that the Defense Department is giving Israel everything they need; and for demanding that the U.N. Security Council must condemn Hamas – even though the UNSC refused to do so.

We urge Pres. Biden to take these needed, vital additional actions:

  1. Insist that the International Red Cross immediately visit and protect the Jewish hostages who are being held, gang raped, paraded through the streets naked and tortured in Gaza. Take all possible steps to locate and help Israel rescue or secure the release of the hostages.
  1. Strictly enforce Iran sanctions to stop the flow of oil money to Iran, which is being used to murder Jews.
  1. Recoup and/or freeze the $6 billion released to third parties for Iran a few weeks ago.
  1. Immediately stop all payments to Palestinian projects and Hamas-allied UNRWA. These payments enable more anti-Jewish and anti-American terrorism.
  1. Condemn the Palestinian demonstrations in the U.S., Gaza, Bethlehem, Jenin, Huwara and elsewhere, that have been celebrating Hamas for slaughtering over 1,000 innocent Jews and raping and torturing Jewish hostages; and that have been calling for “globalizing the Intifada” – meaning murdering Jews in the U.S. and throughout the world. These demonstrations calling for “globalizing the Intifada” have even taken place outside ZOA’s offices.
  1. End all administration calls for a Palestinian Arab state, and/or for actions to bring this about. Hamas’ slaughter of over 1,000 Jews, and the murders of dozens of Jews by Fatah and other Arab terror groups in Judea/Samaria, makes it clear that a Palestinian Arab state would be a state dedicated to genocide against the Jewish people.
  1. Immediately end your administration’s antisemitic boycott of joint scientific, technological and research projects past the artificial 1948 armistice lines.
  1. Defund and leave the biased UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and its so-called “UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel,” which is already again wrongly condemning Israel’s defensive actions against Gazan terrorists.
  1. Withdraw your nomination of Jack Lew for U.S. Ambassador to Israel. In 2015, Mr. Lew lied to American Jews about the Iran deal’s terms in order to promote the deal. He is the wrong person for this sensitive post when Israel is battling Iran-backed terrorists.
  1. Close the U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs (OPA), which outrageously posted a statement calling on “all sides” [meaning Israel] to “refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks” – right after Hamas attacked Israel with thousands of rockets, slaughtered and wounded thousands of Israelis and took families hostage. The post was later deleted, but further demonstrates the bias and harm done by the OPA, which also undermines Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem and is involved in payments to Palestinians.
  1. Continue unwavering support of Israel and all efforts to destroy Hamas and other Iranian-backed terror groups, so that we can never have another slaughter of so many innocent Jews like the horror we saw this past weekend.
  1. Support as much time as Israel needs to destroy the Hamas Arab Muslim terrorist group and replenish all equipment Israel will need.
  2. Vet all illegal and legal migrants to the U.S. to insure none of them are Hamas – like radical Muslims or other radical extremists who hate Jews, Israel, or America.
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